A year ago, the cryptic message arrived. It was Mother’s Day.
“Do you remember a story you wrote in 1990 — ‘Death Dream Came Day Before Slaying’? Does that ring a bell by any chance?”
At first, I thought the sender had mistaken me for someone else. But then, another email. A clipping of a Toronto Star article, and my byline.
I didn’t remember the headline. But I couldn’t forget the sender. At the time of the article, To-Shanna Halstead was 10 months old.
More than 30 years later, it remains one of the most difficult stories I’ve had to write.
Halstead’s mom, 21-year-old Juline Halstead, died in hospital after being stabbed at a house party in Markham.
It was hard to fathom that the voice over the phone was the infant that Juline had left behind, and that baby was now a decade older than her mother when she died.
The story was also personal to me. Juline had been attacked at a house party in my neighbourhood. And like me, Juline was an immigrant from Jamaica.
I remember driving to the North York townhome of her mother, Olga Powell, and she said that Juline had dreamt that she was “flying with angels” the day before she was stabbed.
“That was the last thing she said to me,” said Powell.Through the decades, Powell had kept the story that I had written. But To-Shanna, growing into adulthood, never read it. It was too painful. Until now — during a pandemic that asked her to confront the existential.
“COVID really forced me to slow down and reflect,” says To-Shanna.
After many years gone, she wanted answers. So she started with me. But I wasn’t sure I had any to give. As a journalist your day job at times involves experiencing the horrific. But you very rarely get the chance to follow up on the impact — especially decades later.
“I was very emotional, very depressed for a long time. And kids can be cruel growing up,” says Halstead. “I lost my mom and I don’t feel that I have closure. I just need to know more.”
Andrea Jacqueline Lewin, the 19-year-old woman who killed Juline in a confrontation, was sentenced to four years in prison. The two women had apparently bumped into each other while dancing inside the home, sparking an altercation later that night.
Lewin was originally charged with second-degree murder. A jury found her not guilty on that charge, but guilty on the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Judge Eugene Fedak of Ontario Court, general division in Newmarket commented on Lewin’s conduct, saying it “deters evidence of remorse.”
Two witnesses said in statements to the court that Lewin had “sneered” and told Halstead’s family: “At least I’m still alive.”
So Halstead wanted answers. Who saw what happened at the party? What does she tell her son about his grandmother de ella? What happened to Lewis? And what exactly is her mother’s legacy de ella?
“I always wonder, does anyone care my mother’s life was taken that night?” Halstead asks.
Looking through the lens of old newspaper clippings does not bring solace.
The tabloid headlines of the era scream “Monster Party Menace” and “A Deadly Trend Takes Hold in Metro,” referring to house parties frequented by Black Canadians. The term “Reggae” becomes a racist dog whistle.
“The media painted this image of being an unruly party filled with criminals,” says Halstead. “Why was this portrayed that way? It’s sad to see that maybe not much has changed in 30 years.”
The slaying had more than one victim. Grandmother Powell raised Halstead, sacrificing her own dreams of her over the next several decades. Mother’s Day brought perpetual grief.
“It’s not something you can ever get over,” says Olga, now 72. “There are days I still wake up and cry that Juline is gone.”
Powell had plans to open a restaurant, but couldn’t after having to raise 10-month old To-Shanna along with being a mother to her four remaining children.
“Life just stopped. And in some ways it never started back.”
To-Shanna calls Powell her mom and her “angel on earth.”
“Her life declined after that. She sacrificed for me.”
We corresponded frequently over the following year, trying to find answers.
At one point, looking up recent provincial court cases, I discover that Lewin is divorced, and there has been an acrimonious custody battle over her twins.
In 2017, after being charged with several offenses over allegations that she deprived her former husband of access to their children, she pleaded guilty to one count and was given probation for 18 months.
Halstead contacts Lewin’s former husband. He wants to meet her, and says he did not know about his wife’s past. According to court records the couple met while they were in New York, and lived in Amsterdam for two years. But at the time Halstead doesn’t have the emotional energy.
However, she does try to reach Lewin, and makes the difficult decision to send an email to a relative of the woman who killed her mother.
But she reaches a dead end. On behalf of Lewin, the relative tells Halstead: “Good morning. Andrea does not wish to speak to you at this time. The chapter is closed for her. Prayers on your healing journey.”
It’s not the answer she was hoping for, and it’s crushing.
With her mother gone, it was doubly difficult for Halstead because, she says, her birth father was never a part of her life.
“I never had a relationship with him. That’s why it was so hard. And that’s why I’m so passionate about understanding my mother’s story. I don’t have anyone to tell me that’s where I come from.”
Still, there is a lot of her mother in her, she says. She’s a hairdresser and she enjoys dancing just like her mom. And she is a go-getter. The entrepreneur has two businesses, running her own skin care line, Indie Beauty Livingand a second business, Sky Suga Sweets, that specializes in desserts.
The quest to unlock her past is not without an emotional cost for Halstead. Months pass by and I don’t hear from Halstead. But in the winter, she sends me a video.
It is, to say the least, an unexpected twist.
Halstead, with her husband and 10-year-old son in tow, has bumped into Lewin at a packaging store. It turns out Lewin also has a hot sauce company as well as a cookie company and they frequent the same retailer.
“I knew it was her because her face is burned in my head” from looking at her social media postings, says Halstead.
In the video, Halstead asks Lewin: “Do you know who I am?”
Lewin says yes, but it’s clear she isn’t sure.
“You murdered my mom,” says Halstead.
“I know who you are,” says Lewin.
“No you don’t,” says Halstead.
Lewin calls Halstead a “warmonger” just like her mom for confronting her in the store.
Halstead responds: “How would you feel if you just saw the person who murdered your mother?”
Afterward, Halstead said she was shaken by the experience, but glad she confronted her.
“She still shows no signs of remorse, just like in court,”
The Star also contacted Lewin through her business, but did not receive a response.
Still, Halstead says she refuses to be victimized. She wants her son to know that “not everything is perfect,” and to be grateful for every kindness.
“I don’t want him or anyone to be ashamed of the trauma I’ve had in my life. I’m glad that I finally had the courage to reach out. To find answers. No matter what, I know I tried.”
There is still much to process. Grandma Powell says she still has a video of her daughter’s funeral that she has yet to show Halstead. But that is for another day.
“It’s there when she’s ready,” Powell told me. “It’s been hard for everyone. But her mom would be proud of her.
As a retired reporter, I’m not sure what the lessons are in a tumultuous year, bookended by Mother’s Days.
You often don’t get the long view of the aftermath. Or have your own small sense of closure, after seeing the trauma of losing a child up close.
This story does not have a perfect ending. It was a year of painful discovery, a process that still endures. And perhaps that’s the lesson here. It’s the trying, after so many years, that counts.
What I’ve seen is not tragedy, but resilience. The resilience of mothers through generations to cope, and yes thrive, through the most difficult of times. And to see that child grow up to an empathetic, caring woman and mother herself.
I have seen what a grandmother’s love has meant as the heart continues to mend imperfectly, but steadily. And a young woman, finally on the road to healing after finding answers she has long denied herself.
It made me think of my own 91-year-old mom, and question what exactly is Mother’s Day to those who never had the opportunity to mark that milestone.
“Even as a mother I never really allowed my husband or son to celebrate me,” says Halstead. “It always took me to a really sad place.”
But perhaps not this day. Halstead says she is determined to take back this day for herself and for her grandmother de ella.
This year she will do what she has done every year: Light a candle, buy some flowers and place it by her mom’s picture.
And there might be a small private celebration that she will finally allow herself.
“It makes me feel more connected. That she isn’t forgotten. And that we never forget who she was and what she meant. She might not be here, but we can still honor her.”
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